Development
The character of Sailor Uranus was not developed until partway through the Sailor Moon series, after the Guardian Senshi were well-established. She was created in tandem with Sailor Neptune, as "complementary but opposite characters," and meant from the beginning to work alongside Sailor Pluto. Creator Naoko Takeuchi has said that she was shocked by the changes made to Haruka's personality in the anime series, but that she was glad fans still liked the character.
Initial drawings of Haruka are softer and more feminine than they would later become; she was originally intended to be involved in the all-female Takarazuka Revue, playing male roles on stage. Although this was not included in the series itself, Takeuchi stated in an interview that she feels Takarazuka is "the maximum level of feminine emancipation. These actress cover all roles of the plays, even the male ones. I was inspired by them to create Haruka." She also described such a figure as "the female best friend and the fairy tale prince in one," stating that she had wanted for a long time to include a character like this in one of her works. Haruka is intended as an older sister figure for the younger girls populating the series, and as a counterpoint to Mamoru, Takeuchi's ideal man.
Haruka is relatively androgynous in the manga, wearing both feminine and masculine outfits, in tune with the traditional depiction of a beautiful androgynous woman in shōjo comics. Takeuchi drew Haruka as physically different when she dresses in male clothes, with a more masculine figure than otherwise. She even refers to Haruka as being "in male form" at these times, and stated that she wanted this to continue in the anime—which it did. In the anime, Haruka's sometimes-feminine appearance is downplayed, and she almost always dresses as a man.
Haruka's fascination with racing draws at least some of its details from Takeuchi herself; in the manga, they even share a favorite car, the Ferrari 512M. In the anime, she is seen driving a yellow or white Toyota 2000GT (1968) convertible, and once Mazda Mx-5 Miata in montego blue (1990).
The kanji of Haruka's surname translate as "sky" (天, ten?) and "king" (王, ō?). Together, they constitute most of the name of the planet Uranus in Japanese, Ten'ōsei (天王星?, "sky king star"). Her given name is in hiragana haruka (はるか?) and so its meaning is not inherent, but the word itself means "distant" (遥?). Her family name is sometimes incorrectly romanized as Tennō, which is in fact a more common writing of the planet's name, but the manga invariably glosses Haruka's surname as Ten'ō where furigana are used, and it is pronounced this way in the anime.
Her name in the English-language anime, Amara, is derived from the Greek word αμαραντος amarantos, meaning "eternal" or "unfading". In 1998, the packaging of dolls released in Canada by Irwin Toys gave Haruka the name Corinn. In the Mixx (now Tokyopop) manga, she was once named Alex; Mixx later admitted this was a mistake, and changed her name back.
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